Climate Change Threatens Mental Health
In the News (From France24.com): “Flooding, drought, and superstorms boosted by climate change are not only poised to ravage human habitats but mental health as well, according to Australian researchers.
“’Recent experience shows extreme weather events also pose a serious risk to public health, including mental health and wellbeing, with serious flow-on consequences for the economy and wider society.’
“Up to now, however, few efforts have been made to assess the psychological impact of climate change-enhanced weather events, which in Australia have destroyed communities, farms, and businesses.
“In poorer countries with less capacity to absorb such shocks, the consequences on mental health are likely to be even greater, the report warned.
“’The emerging burden of climate-related impacts on community morale and mental health – bereavement, depression, post-event stress disorders, and the tragedy of self-harm – is large,’ noted Tony McMichael, a professor at Australian National University, in introducing the study.
“Statistics from Australia show higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, violence, family breakups, and suicide after extreme weather events, with impacts more pronounced in rural and semi-rural areas according to the report.
“’Evidence is emerging that drought and heat waves lead to rates of self-harm and suicide as much as eight percent higher’ when annual rainfall is at least 300 millimetres below average, it said.
“Children in particular are vulnerable to pre-disaster anxiety and post-trauma illness, the researchers noted.
“This is due not only to direct exposure of life-threatening situations and dislocation from family and community supports, but also to ‘the reality of living with long term threat,’ noted Ian Hickie, director of the Brain and Mind Research Institute.
“Climate change will also render already stressful conflicts over resource use, especially for water, even more volatile, he added.”
My Comment: But namely man by his behavior, his lack of aspiration to balance with nature causes the changes of nature, its instability and variability. And then nature itself reacts to these changes and backlashes. It’s because nature consists of the following parts: still, vegetative, animate, and human. A human is the highest part of nature, not because of his animal body, but due to his desire and reason.
For thousands of years, nature was developing desires and reason in humans. While the desires and the mind were evolving, nature did not put obstacles for us. But at the end of the last century, the individual development in each person came to an end. Since then, the desire and the mind started to unite with nature in one integral network. The world became globally and integrally connected. The network between us made us interconnected.
However, the desires and the mind remained egoistic, and thus, are opposite to the network, and in the process of convergence, evoke greater hatred and crisis: Egoists cannot function in the common network. And because man’s desire and mind are the highest, that is, the most influential in the connection network between all parts of nature, people suffer more than others—and from all other levels.
It is the time for everyone to draw a conclusion because nature will force us anyway! Is it not better to change our inner nature: egoism?
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Simply from a survival standpoint it is becoming increasingly more obvious that improper connections amongst us are causing all the global crises we now face. As you have said, we can act like ostriches, but denial won’t decrease or diminish a crisis. In fact it will only cause the blows to be more severe in the future.
It seems like a person with debts who stops paying them. He even stops thinking about the debt because it causes him pain. But his lethargy or denial doesn’t cause his problems to decrease or diminish but to increase with time.
Climate change is an excellent topic to speak of when talking about man’s imbalence with each other and the planet. With increasingly harsh weather conditions it becomes more and more obvious that we will either change or greater and greater sufferings will prompt us to.
This is why it is laughable when someone says, “man won’t change” regarding some issue. Because anyone is willing to undergo any change if he thinks it will alleviate his suffering.